STONEWALL: Flying the black flag informs the enemy that surrender will never be begged nor quarter given. A fight to the last man alive. This is the war I advise we wage against the North. Give me three swift columns stabbing up across the Mason-Dixon line and I will hold you hostage the richest cities of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.

BARDO GUIDE: One of his officers once let a particularly brave squad of Union cavalry escape.

BARDO GUIDE: Friend of the Hopeless, Ally of the Night. Runaway slave girl turned Underground Railroad Conductor.
In her right arm upraised she holds her people's living symbol of salvation -- the North Star.

HARRIET: On a clear night running, just keep it in front of y'all to find yo way to freedom. Cloudy nights ye gots to feel the tree trunks for the mossy side.

BARDO GUIDE: In her left hand she holds a pistol: insurance against a passenger who might lose nerve and try to turn back.

HARRIET: I'll give you the same choice the Good Lawd gives every body: git free or die. I done my share of digging. Won't take me long to plant what's left of you in this soft Dixie dirt.

BARDO GUIDE: Be not afraid, oh free and brave. Conductor Tubman will free over 300 slaves, and never lose a passenger.

HARRIET: Says so on my wanted poster, or so they tell me. I'll have to take ‘em at dey word on dat. But as long as I hold my book right side up I gots a chance dem slave dawgs'll take me for a free nigger girl who done know'd how to read.

Up until your Persian Gulf War, I am the first and only woman to lead an American combat expedition. I takes me a battalion of 600 black freedmen, and I raid up and down Carolina River plantations. One day we free 750 slaves. Cain't nearly fit ‘em all on the boats. Lawd, it's a good day.

CRISPUS: Became a sailor. One of the few things they'll let a dark man do for a decent wage.

BARDO GUIDE: In his left hand he holds a length of rope.

CRISPUS: I'm a rope-maker. Learned it at sea. What else you gonna do when you're stuck on a whaler for three years?

Lately the Redcoats been moonlighting in town, taking up jobs from fellahs like me. We tussle with these lobster-backed bastards sometimes, if they try and come in our pubs. One winter night, me and the boys had a few and then had some fun with a lone red-coat guard out on patrol.

CRISPUS: That's us all right, all pelting this lobster good. Then don't ya know a whole squad of lobsters shows up with their muskets and their bayonets. High, mighty Sergeant tell us to disperse. Shoves his point at me.
“Man, get that knitting needle out my face.”

Maybe your illustrious John Adams is right. Maybe my brother Crispus was nothing more than a saucy jack-tarr thug looking for trouble. But aren't all revolutions ultimately sparked by such men? Where would you be without my brother, Crispus?

CRISPUS: Man, get that knittin' needle out my face.

EMMA: Far from being depraved creatures of low instincts, such men are in reality supersensitive beings driven to some violent expression, even at the sacrifice of their own lives, because they cannot supinely witness the suffering of their fellows.

AUDIE: The Krauts are advancing across an open field of snow, covered by a murderous support fire. Most of my whole platoon's already scattered, but I'll be damned if I'm runnin'. The brass has already pinned me with every medal they've got. ‘Bout all that's left is for some medic to split my dog tags, and today seems as good as any for that. I'm taking some Jerrys with me.

BARDO GUIDE: Careful. Audie is one of the most dangerous visions here in the Bardo, for one simple reason: some part of all of us wishes we were he.

Let's take a break. Relax. You can be Audie practically any time you want, but it could just be an eternity before you get a chance to see the big picture this clearly again.
Look back into the darkness, and see his sister...

BARDO GUIDE: Oh free and bravely born, you have passed through the Bardo of American Heroes of Violence. At any time you could have detached yourself from these visions, thus achieving perfect peace and enlightenment. But... you blew it. Hey, don't feel so bad. Happens to the best of us, and the worst of us. Fact is, it pretty much happens to all of us. But it is surely now your fate to be reborn yet again in a world of violence.